New artists were born at the turn of the century - Stanisław Wyspiański - and the endless examination of the topic who we used to be and who we are became the subject of our art. Revenge shows our dissatisfaction with ourselves. Why are the characters depicted in such a comic way? Because it's easier to accept when it's shown like that. But if we were to stop and think about what sort of people they are without this comic turn, we'd be appalled. So what did the authors want? They wanted to inspire Poles with the belief that all of this could be rebuilt. The great French writer, Musset, made the following beautiful and moving statement, 'Poles, if there's nothing you can do to stop them from swallowing you, and you have been swallowed already, then do everything to stop them from digesting you.' And this is really the only motto for the whole of the 19th century. All of these writers, all of these artists right up to the First World War did everything to make sure we weren't digested so that it wouldn't suddenly turn out that we weren't a society at all that could demand its independence since we'd melted into the Russian, Prussian or Austro-Hungarian element. It turned out that no, that art, literature, theatre, the political thought expressed in literary and historical works - because history had also become a topic - meant that Poles didn't renounce their future and somehow, when in '45 the Treaty of Yalta determined that we found ourselves on the Soviet side, Poles remembered the following: that this had already happened before and we have to keep this in mind so that we won't be digested. And the Soviet Union didn't digest us, it didn't succeed. Nothing attractive came out of the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union succeeded in anything it was in making our character more base, more unpleasant, more easily bought. This is reflected very strongly in our contemporary politics.

Polish film director Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016) was a towering presence in Polish cinema for six decades. His films, showing the horror of the German occupation of Poland, won awards at Cannes and established his reputation as both story-teller and commentator on Poland's turbulent history. As well as his impressive career in TV and film, he also served on the national Senate from 1989-91.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.